


Not All that have Fallen are Vanquished

by RivetingFabrications



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Dark Ages AU, Gen, Gods, Other, haven't decided on really any pairings yet?, maybe some slight shallura but we'll see, more to be added later - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-30
Updated: 2016-08-30
Packaged: 2018-08-11 23:28:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7911736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RivetingFabrications/pseuds/RivetingFabrications
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Altea has fallen, her former citizens fleeing their Galran pursuers. Shiro's vows are to protect their princess, but everything seems lost as their enemies draw closer. Until he accidentally invokes the help of the wrong god.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not All that have Fallen are Vanquished

**Author's Note:**

> My original fandom is the absolute shits right now like you would not believe, so until it starts behaving I'm writing for the Voltron fandom. Hope you enjoy :)

The wind is a bitter one, Shiro’s boots crunching loudly in the dark as he sweeps by the tents and the swirling smoke of campfires around him. The winter is a harsh one, and he knows that while his men are loyal, there is only so much dissent he can dispel until mutiny and desertion become reality.  Regardless, he enters the tent in the center of the camp, the largest one though no less worn from the weeks of cold weather and hail.

“Any news, Commander?” Coran greets him, but Shiro sighs wearily, smiling tiredly at the advisor.

“Sorry, no good news. Is the princess here?”

“Shiro!” Abruptly the tent flap opens and Allura squeezes in, two bowls of broth and bread precariously perched in her arms. “Where have you been? We were worried about you!”

“Just checking the perimeters,” says Shiro, smiling softly in spite of himself as Allura thrusts one of the bowls into his hand. “You are well, I trust?”

“Yes, of course, but we need to talk.” Immediately Shiro straightens, walking towards the rickety table in the center where the campaign map concerning their strategies is located. Allura points to the grove they had passed three days ago. “Our scouts tell us that Commander Sendak is gaining on us even as we speak, with troops as many as six thousand strong.”

Shiro’s mouth tightens. “We are protecting women and children, Allura,” he points out. “We will eventually run out of supplies. We are slower than them as you say. They will catch up with us soon.”

“If I may,” begins Coran, stroking his moustache, and Shiro wonders just how the man manages to maintain a well-groomed appearance despite their circumstances. “At the river, we might be able to make a stand. There’s a large plateau there, and the river runs fast and deep. If we can cross tomorrow, we can make preparations to engage Sendak.”

“And, it’s on the edge of Arusian territory,” points out Shiro, the gears turning in his head, finally gaining strength to voice his fears and his thoughts for what had plagued him for many days. “If we split up –”

“No,” states Allura firmly, and she looks at him exasperated. “I won’t leave you all –”

“Princess,” begs Shiro, because he’s not above that, “please, your people – they _need_ you. The Arusians are sympathetic to what happened to the Alteans, and if you lead your people there and request sanctuary, they would surely grant it.”

“But –”

“Allura,” says Coran, and Allura frowns and bites her lip because she knows she won’t like what he’s about to say, “Shiro is right. If we fail, what will happen to the lives of those who cannot fight? They are tired of fleeing from the enemy. We have already lost our home. We can’t afford to let the women and children die in a conflict when it’s _avoidable_.”

Allura’s stance stays strongly defiant, and yet Shiro can see that she’s faltering inside, the fear and the doubt and the knowledge that nothing in war was ever certain making her slowly but surely buckle. She had refused to ride off and live the rest of her days in obscurity under threat of the Galran Empire finding her.

Yet it couldn’t last.

“Milady,” Shiro says earnestly, “may I have a word with you privately?” He glances meaningfully at Coran, who immediately bows out under the tent flap, leaving Shiro and Allura alone.

“Shiro,” says Allura firmly, dropping the veneer of any formality, “I can’t leave you here alone to fight Zarkon. Let Coran lead the women and children to the Arusians, I can –”

“It’s not that I think you are unfit to stay here, Allura,” says Shiro quietly. “It’s that if I were – if _we_ were to lose you…the Alteans would have no more hope.” _And we are in dire need of hope these days._ “You are what drives them to endure, Allura. You’ve proven how capable a leader you are a thousand times over, that you’re every bit your father. You’re a fearsome fighter as well; but what we need from you now aren’t your combat skills, we need your skills as a diplomat and a _ruler_.”

Her eyes slip away from his, downcast. “But what about you?”

“Milady.” He kneels without even thinking. “My job as your paladin is to protect you. And I can best protect you when you are not on the front lines.”

Allura remains silent for what seems like an eternity. “How many men do you have?”

“A little over one thousand. If there are those who would fight with us, we must find them soon.”

“There are none.” Allura’s words are bleak. “The Arusians are a peaceful race. The Balmerans are already under Galran control.”

“Then you must keep searching. Both you and Coran.”

“We are the only force battling the Galrans –”

“ _I_ will be the only force battling the Galrans,” interrupts Shiro firmly. “And I will do so until we find help. Zarkon has only sent Sendak; he has not sent the entirety of his force. We will not win the war alone. You _must_ find help or else King Alfor’s sacrifice will have been for nothing.”

Allura’s face twists heartbreakingly, but Shiro toughens himself against the way her eyes glimmer brightly in the dim candlelight of the tent.

“Tomorrow, after we’ve crossed the river, it would be best to separate. Take a hundred of my men with you for protection.”

“That’s too much –”

“Milady. We will hold the river and the plateau for as long as we can, but what if we fail?” Shiro looks at her earnestly. “The sick and the wounded will need all the help they can get. You cannot protect hundreds women and children by yourself, princess. And it may be that all I can do is only buy you time to reach the Arusians before Sendak catches up.”

Allura is eerily silent, ruminating on Shiro’s words and trying to counter them with logic. When she speaks again, her voice is weary, exhausted.

“Promise me that you’ll win.”

“I can’t promise that, milady.” Shiro clambers back onto his feet, brushing the wisp of white hair away from his face. “But I promise that I won’t let Sendak catch up with you.”

“Then promise me you won’t die.”

Shiro’s mouth thins. “Milady-”

“It’s _Allura_. And if you don’t promise me that, I won’t leave.”

Shiro exhales heavily at the stubbornness of his dearly beloved princess, but he inclines his head. As his eyes fall to the ground, he catches sight of Allura’s hand; without thinking, he gently catches her wrist in a loose-handed grip, pressing his lips to the back of her fingers with as soft a pressure he can manage.

“I swear,” he breathes, and lets her fingers slip away from his like sunlight and water.

~*~*~*~

It’s high noon at the riverbanks when Shiro’s men are cutting down logs and trees, the women and children helping too by helping to drag the logs and heavy boulders over to dam the river.

“We’re almost done,” he says, and Allura nods reluctantly even as she races by, her shoes muddied and grass-stained. Coran is spearheading most of the work, as bit by bit the river ebbs and dies to a weak enough current that their massive party is able to cross.

It comes all too soon and all too late; they finished late when the sun is beginning to sink.

“One more night,” says Shiro, frustrated with himself. “Then you have to go.”

“I know,” is all Allura says as she contents herself with the freshly caught fish. The tents are unfolded, families saying their goodbyes, knowing in their hearts their departures may be permanent ones.

Noise. So much noise. Shiro tosses and turns alone in his tent, surrounded by the cacophony of loved ones crying, laughing, whispering.

Sendak is always moving forward. Faster, stronger, better.

He has too much to lose. Shiro stumbles out from his tent, worn and weary with his muscles faintly complaining from the day’s labor. As he trudges past the campfire, he passes one of the women ladling out the last of the day’s gruel.

“One more, for the Princess’ paladin?” she smiles kindly, and Shiro manages a warm smile before accepting the proffered food. His stomach is twisted into knots of worry, but he’ll choke down the food because he never knows when his next meal is.

He carries his bowl to the edges of the camp, and then towards the sentries. They regard him with a stiff salute and an offered torch; he nods courteously to them even as he goes beyond the circle of tent, the fire burning brightly in the night. The scouts had said there was some game, but then towards the southwestern edge of the plateau there was a shallow outcropping of rocks which might be put to some use, an old man-made shrine to some forgotten deity.

In the darkness, every shadow was a Galran, a past horror of bloodshed. Nature was rarely ever quiet, yet it seemed to be eerily silent as the echoes of the camp faded into distant cricket chirps and Shiro’s own heavy footfalls.

He sees the outcropping of the plateau as a huge, looming silhouette, a steep incline he knows that will act as a natural land barrier against the Galrans. He maps rudimentary fortifications in his mind, crude ideas of how best to use the terrain to his advantage taking shape.

The boulders that the sentries had spoken of take a while for Shiro to find. The rocks there were of solid, durable stone that didn’t match the loose gravel of shale that Shiro’s boots crunched against; so other people, perhaps the Arusians long ago had dragged them here in tribute to whatever gods they shipped. The flickering light of his torch casts dancing shadows onto odd inscriptions etched into the stone, worn away enough that Shiro can barely make out what they are.

Following the odd trail of manmade carvings into the unnatural boulders, Shiro passes deeper into the darkness, with only his torch for guidance. Eventually the carvings become so faint he can only tread forward, curious as to what they lead to. He eventually stops in front of a giant stone slab within a shallow cave, almost like a table, but there’s an overhang and dusty ceramic fragments beyond it where he thinks old caricatures or statues of whichever deity the old ones worshipped must have crumbled into dust. Still, there’s a faint, rounded indentation in the slab where he thinks offerings should go, and in the stillness of the night, Shiro looks around what he believes to be an old shrine.

The Alteans had their own beliefs and customs, but with the rise of technology, many of the old gods had faded into myth and old wives’ tales. And now that the Altean cities had been sacked and burned, falling to the Galrans...Shiro found himself idly wondering if science had truly been such a savior.

Those who had created Altean tech were few and far between now; most of their scholars and those with wisdom and knowledge of how to recreate what had made Altea great were dead now. Shiro couldn’t say he was religious, but he supposed it couldn’t hurt to pray.

He set the torch down, before placing the already cold bowl of gruel in the center of the slab and clasping his hands together.

 _I need strength,_ he prays silently, his eyes sliding closed. _I must protect Allura and the rest of the Alteans. The Galrans will conquer until there is nothing left. I am but a single force trying to stop the Galran empire. If you are there, god, or deity, or whatever you are, show me how I might win. For Allura. Always, for her._

“Wow. I was really shocked when I realized I was getting summoned. But wow. Mortal food has really gone downhill since I last visited. This stuff is so _cold_. And kinda chewy, but okay. I’ve had worse, I guess. Not often, though.”

Shiro shouts and stumbles back, hand outstretched in a defensive position.

“What, man, isn’t this for me? I mean, it was on the table and everything.”

“I - what -” Shiro stares, gawking at the sizable man now devouring the bowl of gruel. His clothes are plain, an orange bandana tied around his forehead. The man sighs, sated as he sets down the already empty bowl and sits back.

“Thank you for the meal,” he says seriously, clapping his hands and nodding gracefully at Shiro.

“Who – who exactly are you?” stammers Shiro, completely taken aback, and the guy gawks at him. His garb and his features are distinctly not Altean, and Shiro doesn’t recognize him in the slightest.

“Dude, you _summoned_ me. I mean, I don’t want to sound conceited or anything, but surely you have to have _some_ idea of who I am?”

“I – you’re –” Shiro has heard of the legends, where the gods would test mortals in the guise of a man, but when he looks at the person sitting cross-legged in front of him, he’s not sure what to believe.

“Dude, I own this shrine.” The man waves around meaningfully. “Like, it’s dedicated to me and all, you know, which is pretty cool. Though I guess it could really use a spring cleaning. Kinda dusty.” He sneezes. “You’re the first to summon me in about, uh, ten thousand years, I’d say.”

“I – you’re a _god_?” Shiro scrambles up hastily. “I – I am _so_ sorry –” he kneels, pressing his palms to the dirt and resting his head upon the backs of them.

“Whoa, whoa, _whoa_ , you don’t need to do that.” A strong hand claps onto his shoulder and squeezes firmly, warm and a little rough. Lifting his head, Shiro looks into warm, earnest eyes. “I forgot what kind of impact we have on you guys. Anyway, they call me Hunk. Or well, what you guys used to call me, anyway. So, what can I do for you?” He takes a closer look at Shiro’s clothes – all leathers and metal. “A soldier?” He asks this in some surprise.

“Oh, I –” here Shiro straightened – “well, you wouldn’t happen to be a god of uh, war?”

Hunk’s eyebrows nearly disappear beneath the bandana. “Oh gosh, you definitely have the wrong deity. I don’t do that kinda stuff. Me? I’m all about food and like, I don’t know. Wine and parties and like, general happiness, I guess?”

Shiro tries his hardest not to look crestfallen. “Oh,” he says softly, but the sympathy in Hunk’s eyes speak volumes.

“But well, you summoned me, and you shared your food with me. So the least I can do is listen to your tale or your request.”

“It’s…a long story,” says Shiro wearily, and he knows his torch is running low on fuel.

“I have two ears,” says Hunk kindly, crossing his legs. With a wave of his hand, the torch fire burns brighter, and suddenly the cave feels just a little bit warmer.

Shiro licks his lips hesitantly. He hasn't felt truly warm in a long time, Hunk’s eyes are kind and his face gently creased with faint laughter lines. He can't recall when he could last safely confide his fears to someone, when he didn’t have to put up the front of a leader, confident and strong in the face of ever present danger where lives depended on him. Eventually, he slides into a cross-legged position as well, facing Hunk, and the god's bright smile only grows wider, beckoning.

“It started in a place called Altea…”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed the story so far ^^ If you'd like more, I hope you consider leaving a comment :) They really make my day and well, there's no point in updating if no one likes the story, right?
> 
> Also, all the characters should be popping in and out eventually, so stay tuned ^^


End file.
